FACT FROM FICTION ON TORONTO'S FINGER-POINTING ON

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TORONTO 003314 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/21/2015 TAGS: KCRM PREL PGOV CA SUBJECT: FACT FROM FICTION ON TORONTO'S FINGER-POINTING ON GUNS AND APPROACH TO REGISTRATION REF: A. TORONTO 2451 ¶B. TORONTO 2469 ¶C. TORONTO 2498 ¶D. TORONTO 2966 ¶E. TORONTO 3195 Classified By: Consul General Jessica LeCroy for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d ). ¶1. (C) Begin Summary and Comment: With a gun crime spike in the Toronto area, provincial and city political leaders have supported the Liberal party's December 8 presumed vote-getting proposal for a nation-wide gun ban. The existing Canadian Firearms Registry has long been supported in Ontario, although the central registration system is flawed and may be vulnerable to efforts by criminal elements to gain access to its database. This message explains the origin of and possible motivation for Toronto Mayor Miller's and others' statements that 50% of guns used in the commission of crimes in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) originate from the U.S., why limiting guns is seen as a vote-winner in Ontario, general background on the Canadian Firearms Registration Act, and U.S. and Canadian law enforcement concerns about the registry system. The gun issue has been a perennial favorite for political spin doctors, particularly during this election season, so separating fact from fiction for a Canadian audience pre-disposed toward believing their problems derive from south of the border will require tact and perseverance. End Summary and Comment. -------------- -------------- The Fifty Per-Cent Solution to Our Political Woes? -------------- -------------- ¶2. (C) Toronto Mayor David Miller and other city and provincial officials have publicly and repeatedly stated that 50% of the guns seized by the Toronto Police Service come from the U.S. The Mayor cited the 2000 Toronto Police Report to both the Ambassador in his November 14 courtesy call and the Consul General as the source for this figure. The text of the report, however, claims only that "over the past 5 years it has been determined that more than 50% of all handguns seized by the police in Ontario are not registered in Canada" (Note: Canadian law enforcement officials claim that many hunters in rural and western Canada have ignored the registry requirements altogether. These officials readily admit that guns stolen from inside Canada are a significant problem. End note). The "spin" on this statement of fact deflects public scrutiny away from Toronto's ineffective efforts to stem the gun violence this year and panders to popular anti-American sentiment that makes it easy to blame "the Americans." ¶3. (C) Out of public view, the working level cooperation between ATF and the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Provincial Weapons Enforcement Unit (PWEU) is close and holds promise for reducing the flow of illegal guns from the U.S. to Canada. Toronto ATF reports that its Ontario law enforcement colleagues view this as a shared responsibility and have privately said that the recurring use of headline-grabbing statistics by Canadian politicians is not helpful. According to ATF, it is currently impossible to document the number of guns from the U.S. that are used to commit crimes in Canada. Because the actual percentage may be more, or less, than 50%, depending upon how the statistics are collected and tabulated, ATF recommends that U.S. officials avoid discussing specific figures or percentages and emphasize instead our shared responsibility and intensified efforts to combat gun smuggling. The Consulate has advocated that its Canadian contacts hold to this message as well. Ontario Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services Monte Kwinter has also been proactive in reminding Ontario officials of this. ¶4. (SBU) After Mayor Miller cited the 50% figure in a December 8 press conference, the Consul General contacted the Mayor on December 9 to explain that the figure was inaccurate and that these public mischaracterizations not only hurt bilateral relations but undermined the morale of officials on both sides of the border who are working hard to improve their ability to intercept any weapons illegally bought in the U.S. and smuggled into Canada. The intervention appears to have had some affect because in a CBC radio interview dealing with the banning announcement later in the day, the mayor did not mention the U.S., instead choosing to focus on the issue of guns stolen from within Ontario, such as the Malvern case. Similarly, the Consulate's ATF agent met with Toronto and provincial police authorities to explain the difficulty of gathering reliable statistics. ¶5. (SBU) Tight firearms controls resonate in urban Canada, especially in Toronto where several factors converge. First, Toronto enjoys its reputation as Canada's most sophisticated and highly educated city. Gun ownership intrudes on that sophisticated self-image (a registry gives people the sense that at least something is being done --even if it is ineffective). Second, urban areas of Canada, like those in the U.S., have less of a hunting ethos than rural areas. In rural Canada, firearms are seen as hunting tools; in urban Canada, guns are often seen as tools of crime. Third, the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is a city of immigrants. Almost 50% of the people in the GTA were born outside Canada, and many came from urban areas where only the police or criminals had guns. For them, strict gun controls reinforce their cultural and political values. Fourth, in 2005 the GTA saw an unprecedented level of homicide-by-gun. This carnage has transfixed the community, which has long enjoyed a very low homicide rate compared to the U.S. (Note: non-violent crimes are more in line with the U.S.'s; car thefts are actually higher. End note.) -------------- -------------- Federal Election Campaign: Politicians Vie For The Spotlight on the Gun Issue -------------- -------------- ¶6. (SBU) On December 8, Prime Minister Paul Martin proposed tough new firearms controls in what is widely perceived as a pure political ploy to attract Toronto's vote. Each Canadian Province would be "invited" to participate in Martin's plan, however under Canadian law, provincial participation would be strictly voluntary. Ontario has already indicated that it will opt in. Martin,s C$325-million, five-point plan includes: --Banning the sale of handguns in Canada and retrieving the handguns now in civilian hands through a buy back program (Note: Campaigns to take firearms off the streets are nothing new to Toronto; e.g. last month,s surrender plan in the city yielded only 261 firearms. The offer of Raptor pro basketball tickets collected 28 guns in March and April of ¶2002. In 2000 officials paid C$50 each for 1,753 weapons. End note). --Doubling the mandatory sentences for gun-related criminal convictions (Note: The Canadian criminal code does not dictate mandatory sentences for gun crimes. Only two crimes are addressed: Using a firearm to commit an offense, and possession of a weapon obtained in an offense. Each carries a statutory minimum of one year,s imprisonment. Ontario officials (Attorney General Bryant and Minister Kwinter) have been in the forefront of aggressive lobbying of federal officials to include tough mandatory sentences for gun crimes. End note). --Full compliance with existing gun registry laws (Note: Martin answered a reporter,s question by saying that nothing new was proposed for the 70-year-old federal handgun registry, but that compliance efforts would be redoubled. Ontario is unique among the provinces in supporting a registry. End note). --Investment in community programs that would focus on youth at risk (Note: This would be funded by a C$50-million &Gun Violence and Gang Prevention Fund8 and would also target skills development programs. This provision mirrors the well-publicized programs that Ontario and the City of Toronto have already begun implementing. End note). --Increasing enforcement staff, including the addition of 75 new customs officers at the border over the next five years at an annual cost of C$8 million, and a new special customs intelligence unit to &stop black market guns coming from the U.S." The plan also calls for a C$45 million a year, 250-officer unit of the RCMP to work with local and provincial governments on gun-related crime (Note: This initiative builds on Ontario,s initiative earlier this year to add up to 1,000 new police officers across the province. End note). ¶7. (U) Opposition leaders were quick to criticize Martin's plan. Conservative Leader Stephen Harper responded by releasing a statement calling for a "crackdown on illegal gun use, stopping the flow of illegal guns at our border," and introducing mandatory minimum prison sentences. Harper's statement called the Liberal proposals ineffective, adding that the "liberals have done none of these things," except during campaign season. NDP Leader Jack Layton jumped on the bandwagon by also attacking what he termed Liberal Party inaction on public safety. Citing a lack of money because of Liberal-sponsored corporate tax breaks, Layton said he would restore government funding to community and policing plans aimed at reducing the causes and effects of crime and gun violence. -------------- Historical Background on Firearms Control -------------- ¶8. (U) Canada has had a national firearms control and registration system since 1934. Beginning in that year, all handguns were required to be registered. During the Second World War "emergency registration" was extended to all guns, reportedly to keep shotguns and rifles out of the hands of saboteurs. When the war ended, long guns were no longer required to be registered. In 1977, Canada outlawed fully automatic weapons (machine and sub-machine guns). Then, in December 1998, when the 1995 Firearms Act was implemented, .25 and .32 caliber short-barreled handguns were outlawed except those used by competitive target shooters. ¶9. (U) The 1995 Firearms Act represented a sea change by requiring the registration of all firearms and making owners accountable for storage and use of their guns. It also required licensing all firearms owners, tracking all firearms transfers as well as imports and exports. More importantly for law enforcement, it guaranteed police access to gun ownership records. Since December 1, 1998, 7.1 million guns have been registered and police have made 4.6 million inquiries about gun ownership, according to the Canada Firearms Centre that administers the registration program. -------------- A Troubled Registry -------------- ¶10. (U) Management of the Firearms Registry came under fire in December 2002 when Canadian Auditor-General Sheila Fraser revealed massive cost over-runs. In her report, Fraser reminded the Department of Justice that it had initially said the registry program would cost C$119 million, of which C$117 million would be offset by user fees. The Auditor-General's report noted that in 2000, the Department of Justice estimated that by 2004-05 it would spend at least C$1 billion on the program and have net fee collections of $140 million. Later in the same report, Fraser criticized management of the Registry's information systems technology citing examples of invalid software design assumptions, over-design of the system based on the needs of criminal investigations that were outside the scope of the enabling Act, and numerous small changes that "typically took three to six months to implement at a cost of millions of dollars." Auditor-General Fraser made it clear that the Firearms Registry had been seriously mismanaged. -------------- Are Canadian Firearms Records Vulnerable? -------------- ¶11. (C) Senior Canadian law enforcement officials have said that holding the names and addresses of every legitimate Canadian gun owner risks playing into the hands of organized crime. Senior U.S. law enforcement officials are worried that criminal elements could gain illicit access to these records. Ontario has a large number of outlaw motorcycle groups and it is common practice for these types of groups to cultivate or coerce employees of motor vehicle divisions, criminal records centers, and firearms registries, according to law enforcement sources. The criminals use this illegal access to obtain information on themselves, do "background checks" on potential associates to make sure they are not undercover police officers, and to trace the ownership of vehicles they think might be used in undercover surveillance. In the U.S. the fifty states license and register firearms. Canada offers criminals the opportunity for "one-stop" shopping. ¶12. (C) Comment: This weeks &The Economist8 article focusing on gun crime in Vancouver and the recent high-profile murder of a young female Montreal police officer indicates that gun crimes are a Canada-wide urban issue. ATF,s e-Trace system for tracing crime guns was piloted in Ontario and the number of successful traces may have inadvertently fueled the political rhetoric on this issue. A victim of our own success ) we and the Canadians can live quite well with this kind of success as we move forward with our efforts at law enforcement collaboration. LECROY